When I’m reading I like to take pictures of quotes that jump out at me. Here is one about FEAR:
This is from John Maxwell.
Fear Breads Fear
16
Feb
Language Matters.
Learned: Your effectiveness as a leader will hinge on something as “inconsequential” as word choice.
Action: Spend more time developing my vocabulary.
Take Away: John Maxwell speaks and everyone writes it down. Chris Rock says, “One word is going to be the difference in how big your laugh is.” (Nov Sky Magazine pg 62.) How much time was spent on the line “Real life change happens in the context of relationship” so that Hunter in my small group would be quoting pastor Chris Hodges.
Thinking that getting the general idea across will be good enough is no longer good enough for me. If great leaders focus on their words then I will too.
Making the Big Ask.
“Asking is a significant part of Hybels leadership role.” Pg 21
2. Learned: “The ask” only gets bigger as you grow in ministry. Focus on growth in this area or your ministry will not grow. Asking can build relationships. If done right, you honor the other person by asking.
2. Action: Use this chapter when talking about the “Big Ask” with church planters. Be a better asker.
Speed of the Leader, Speed of the Team
3. Learned: Leaders must never expect from others anything more than they’re willing to deliver themselves. When someone wonders how joyful they should be in their jobs, all they should have to do is observe the leaders level of joy. If I can’t be joyful then those I lead will not be either.
3. Action: Like John Maxwell says, “I must first learn to lead myself well.”
Bill Hybels’ Style
4. Learned: These Axioms are Hybels life experiences. The book wasn’t some theory “if you do x then y.” He used stories from his life to show why he leads the ways he does.
4. Action: Use stories when coaching church planters.
Admit Mistakes, and Your Stock Goes Up
5. Learned: When something goes wrong admit it and take responsibility for it. Admitting your mistakes says something about your integrity as a leader. Early on he felt like he had to prove himself. This lead to scrabbling behind the scenes and just made life harder. Now he just shoots straight as soon as he realizes he screwed up. It shows his confidence as a leader.
5. Action: Admit when I blow it.
“1. Small things you do to serve your community can spread through social media.
2. Servant leadership can change your church.
3. Don’t hire someone that doesn’t have a heart to serve”
These were Dino Rizzo’s three points during his break out session at All Access‘09. All of the pastors at this conference are talking about doing things online to reach people.
Here are a few points that stuck out to me-
Point 1:
16 years = 6000 days
“Healing place has had 16 Christmases & 16 Easters. 16 yr of BIG Events. However, 95% of church time is spent doing the small things. Return emails, write thank you cards, having church, doing hospital visits. These are what make Healing Place what it is today. ”
Point 2.
The power of serving. “Serving will reach people more effectively than that the big stuff. Serving brings something common to all generations and races. Facebook, twitter [social media] can cut through barriers to get the word out about serving and outreach.”
Reaching the world by serving One – Our Motto.
Every moment, no matter how small, is what leads to more. Faithful in the little you get to do more. -Jesus
The Little events are what make your church.
Start with a biblical outreach idea. “Helping Widows”
She doesn’t need prayer, she needs a Ford truck- They had the idea to move single moms for free
Point 3.
Have you ever done that?
Idea: Marry people for free. Anyone. Church or not church. Give them free marriage counseling.
Just add value to people!
Dino Rizzo has written a great book on serving call Servolution. Check his book here.
20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. –Mark Twain
Don’t disappoint yourself… Do something!
Or you might end up like this…
DEADLY VIPER PROMO TRAILER: LONG FORMAT:2 MIN from Deadly Viper on Vimeo.
Here is the official trailer for Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A kung fu survival guide for life and leadership. By Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite
This book is great. It talks about a revolution of radical integrity and radical grace. You can also get a DVD series and small group studies.
This picture explains how i had been acting before the Holy Spirit convicted me the other day. i>u. It is so easy to start focusing on i. The only problem is i am no fun for everyone else to be around. i will never have any friends if i don’t shift my focus.
Living for others (helping not hurt) is my goal.
John C Maxwell is allowing his blog readers to proof read and add to his book over the next few months. It will be cool to watch how the book evolves during this process. Here is my first shot at talking about communication {the topic for the new book}. 
What do you think?
Trouble finding time to read a few books?
Today I tried something new. I walked into Borders (local book store near Purdue University) and grabbed a lapdesk and the first 5 books that caught my attention. Then I sat in one of the large leather chairs.
The Goal: Spend 5 min on each book, for a total of 25 min reading. I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be. I didn’t have time to read the whole book or even a whole chapter. There was only enough time to get the big picture.
I had a specific strategy for understanding the main point and finding something that would add value in 5 minutes. Begin with the last sentence. (30 seconds) Next read the chapter titles. Find a chapter of whose content is most interesting to you. (30 seconds – 1 minute) Finally, read that chapter as fast as you can. Be looking for that one little nugget that you can take with you. TIMES UP! This process was more helpful than I planned.
What did I learn?
1st book
The Green Book
Not sure why I picked two books on “how to be green.” Sometimes I like to read things that are just different than my usual. Two things I walked away with were: Will Ferrel drives an electric car. He explained why and how it makes him feel (p 33). The next thing that I learned will be helpful to my speech at the BUG Conference. There are 1.6 billion homes in the world.
2nd Deep Survival
Different than I expected, but the author was very creative and painted a picture well. Sometimes too much. So many adjectives and metaphors, I didn’t know what he was actually saying.
365 Ways to live Green
Their goal is to get you to spread the word about going green. (I know this because page 365 said now that you know, go teach your friends.) I found a section that would help me as I remodel my new house. It was titled “How to make your house more green.” Now I’m thinking about buying energy efficient light bulbs and rethinking the interior decor.
After staying on schedule perfectly, there was 5 minutes left. I saved the best for last.
Field Guide to African Wildlife.
I read about each of the animals I saw in my recent trip to Africa. Skipped all the birds. They just don’t interest me. And even learned about the different types of giraffe.
My take away. I had less than an hour and I learned something. It was time well spent. Obviously, I had to read fast and do a lot of scanning. But this technique helped me understand the main point and have something to take away. I have read a whole book without accomplishing those 2 things.
This process goes fast. It was fun. I wouldn’t recommend it all the time but next time you have a few minutes to kill in a book store, give it a try.
What time saving ideas do you have?
Dino Rizzo- Servolution
18
May
Dino Rizzo author of Servolution and pastor of Healing Place Church in Louisiana is on TOUR! Well a blog tour at least. Here is the question I asked Dino about his church and serving in the community.
Dino have you ever embarrassed yourself while serving in the community?
Thanks, Guy, for participating in the tour. And thanks for asking such an important question. Really. I think there’s a great point to be made here. Have I ever been embarrassed in an outreach? Yes indeed. There have been more times than I want to remember. Like the time we got a shipment in of 40,000 plantains (a member of the banana family that is really more like a potato and certainly isn’t edible raw). I thought they were bananas. They looked like bananas, and everyone we gave them to believed us when we told them they were bananas. But what a surprise when people started peeling them back and trying to eat them.
There were the thousands of coffee cakes we gave away only to learn they had expiration dates several weeks past. There was the time we accepted a truckload of yogurt to distribute but didn’t think about how we were going to keep all the yogurt cold. We didn’t have any refrigeration to handle a truckload of yogurt.
There are times when I’ve been embarrassed because we didn’t think of something we should have. But there are also times I’ve been embarrassed just because the outreach itself was embarrassing. Like the time I tell about in the book where we received a truckload of goods to give away, which included a huge box of leopard-print plus-sized lingerie. There were certainly our fair share of embarrassing moments as our team gave the lingerie away.
And there’s just some moments that are a little awkward. Like a few weeks ago, I went with our team on a late-nite bar outreach. We just set up outside the bars around closing time and offer people water and juice and Chick-Fil-A sandwiches. I gave a sandwich to a dude who was shocked to see me there – he said he goes to our church and really couldn’t believe I was down there checking on him.
The important point in all this is that in serving, when you’re extending yourself to try to do all you can to serve your community, you’re going to make mistakes sometimes. And sometimes it is going to require being willing to put yourself in an awkward spot in order to be where you need to be to serve.
Thanks Dino for letting me participate in the tour.
